Who should get what? The Politics 101 debate around Biden’s debt plan.

Part of the definition of politics in one long-ago American Government and Politics class was how a society organizes itself to allocate finite resources and blunt external and internal threats. That may be paraphrase more than quote, but you get the picture.

According to my colleagues Danielle Douglas-Gabriel and Jeff Stein, the White House estimates about 43 million Americans are eligible under the new plan (assuming it survives inevitable court challenges) and 20 million would see their debt entirely cleared.

The loans must have been originated before July 1. The borrowers must earn less than $125,000 annually of adjusted gross income (double that for married people filing jointly). Forgiveness: Up to $10,000, or $20,000 total for Pell Grant recipients.

The much broader fight over who gets what isn’t just about debt forgiveness, of course. It’s also about subsidies (mortgage interest tax deduction? Corporate tax breaks? Subsidies for fossil fuels? Or renewables?) and government spending ($813 billion for the Defense Department?). Congress has its version every year, in the form of annual appropriations bills. Scheduled confrontations! By design!

So in some ways, high-stakes as it is, the fight over student loans could not be a more normal, small-d democratic argument. But this battle involves perceptions of class, comes 70 days or so before the midterm elections and lands at a time when the GOP is running hard with so-called culture war issues.

Republicans certainly did seem to have a favorite hypothetical beneficiary as they argued Biden’s policy was an unfair transfer of wealth from red-blooded Americans to undeserving elites, as Bloomberg News’s Josh Wingrove noted on Twitter:

No, really, one standout favorite:

Democrats, meanwhile, seemed to enjoy countering a Republican argument that you have to pay back what you borrow by pointing out former president Trump filed six times for bankruptcy protection from his creditors.

And the official White House Twitter account got personal as well, with this thread pointing out some of its most passionate pay-it-back critics had themselves seen their loans forgiven under the pandemic Paycheck Protection Program.

The fight seems to be playing out on three levels.

Policy, with questions like “is this really the best way to address the student loan crisis?”

Philosophy, as in “should people in a democracy pay for something that doesn’t directly benefit them?”

And basic electoral politics.

Scanning statements from the White House and its allies as well as Republican opponents of Biden’s plan, you could see their respective coalitions. Democrats rely more heavily on college grads and Black voters. Republicans depend more on working-class White voters.

As my colleagues Matt Viser and Mark Guarino noted in their excellent piece on the political battle Biden’s announcement triggered: 

“White House officials said they were eager to have a debate that put them on the side of students struggling to pay off loans, particularly the disproportionate number of Black Americans who form a major portion of Biden’s base.”

Meanwhile, on the GOP side:

“At the end of the day his debt forgiveness scheme forces blue-collar workers to subsidize white-collar graduate students,” said Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.). “Instead of demanding accountability from an underperforming higher education sector that pushes so many young Americans into massive debt, the administration’s unilateral plan baptizes a broken system.”

“Biden seemed highly sensitive to Republican claims that his plan was elitist when he announced it Wednesday, saying it would not benefit any high-income Americans,” Matt and Mark reported.

“‘I will never apologize for helping working-class Americans and the middle class, especially not to the same folks who voted for a $2 trillion tax cut that mainly benefited the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations,’ the president said.”

Which may get us to the most obvious truism about politics: That a party in power will sometimes move to reward voters (and donors) who put it there.

Biden to present plans to state, local leaders to protect abortion access

“The White House is sending a letter to the nation’s governors and convening a meeting with state and local leaders about protecting access to abortion, as the Biden administration seeks to highlight its work on protecting reproductive rights on Women’s Equality Day,” Rachel Roubein reports. “Biden administration officials are planning to discuss how states can protect access to abortion and how the federal government can offer its assistance.”

Powell delivers highly anticipated speech in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

“In pointed and blunt remarks on Friday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell said that controlling inflation would cause ‘some pain’ for households and businesses,” Rachel Siegel reports.

“There will very likely be some softening of labor market conditions,” Powell said in his remarks at the annual Jackson Hole Economic Symposium. “While higher interest rates, slower growth and softer labor market conditions will bring down inflation, they will also bring some pain to households and businesses. These are the unfortunate costs of reducing inflation. But a failure to restore price stability would mean far greater pain.”

Power restored to Ukrainian nuclear plant

“Electricity was restored to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Friday, narrowly averting a ‘radiation accident,’ according to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. The facility was cut off from Ukraine’s electricity grid a day earlier, causing a massive power outage and sparking international fears of a crisis, before backup diesel generators kicked in,” Adela Suliman, John Hudson, Grace Moon and Adam Taylor report. “Zelensky warned that Europe remains ‘one step away from a radiation disaster’ as long as Russian troops control the plant.”

Lunchtime reads from The Post

How President Biden decided to go big on student loan forgiveness

“President Biden had doubts. In private conversations with White House staffers and allies in Congress this spring, he said he worried that voters who’d never gone to college could resent a move to cancel huge amounts of student debt,” Jeff Stein and Danielle Douglas-Gabriel report. “Biden also said that the federal government should not be bailing out Ivy League graduates, and that his children should not qualify for help.”

“But a relentless campaign was pressing Biden to embrace dramatic action: There were private appeals aboard Air Force One, the courting of first lady Jill Biden, months of political and economic arguments from senior White House staffers, and warnings by Black lawmakers about the dangers of doing too little. In the end, Biden came around. He didn’t just wipe out up to $20,000 in debt for most borrowers, an amount many activists had thought unlikely. He also defended the notion with passion from the bully pulpit Wednesday.”

Democrats face challenges as they run on law tackling drug costs, climate

Many Democrats across the country are running on a sweeping initiative to tackle health-care and fight global warming that is part of Biden’s resurrected legislative agenda, Annie Linskey reports. “Now that Biden has signed it into law, Democrats across the country are searching for ways to translate the 273 pages of legislative text into support at the ballot box.”

But there’s one problem: “Some of the law’s signature benefits for seniors do not take effect until 2023 to 2026, while the high price of food, housing and fuel are stretching budgets across age groups right now.”

Are extremism and violent crime rising among veterans, or are we just seeing more of it?

“U.S. service members take an oath to protect the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, so it raises alarm bells and grabs headlines whenever a veteran commits an act of anti-government extremism,” Task and Purpose’s Jeff Schogol writes. “The current and former service members who have joined extremist groups represent a tiny percentage of the entire population of troops and veterans. But it’s also true that an increasing number of troops and veterans are taking part in extremist activities.”

Ro Khanna’s apology tour. And why Trump voters love it.

“In August, when most members of Congress are in their respective districts or perhaps off elsewhere to raise funds, Khanna was [in New Castle, Ind.] — not only not at home but in a red part of a red state, not asking for their money, and not asking for their votes (at least not yet),” Politico’s Michael Kruse writes. “Instead, he was here in Indiana, then Wisconsin, then Iowa, sharpening a key plank of his overall political pitch, attempting to rehab his party’s reputation in an area of the country that’s become increasingly inhospitable, and also very obviously laying seed for his own evident presidential ambitions. And maybe the most surprising part of this surprising scene? It appeared to be working.”

The world’s rivers, canals and reservoirs are turning to dust

“From the U.S. to Italy to China, waters have receded, leaving nothing but barren banks of silt and oozing, muddied sand. Canals are empty. Reservoirs have turned to dust,” Bloomberg News’s Brian K Sullivan reports. 

“The world is fully in the grip of accelerating climate change, and it has a profound economic impact. Losing waterways means a serious risk to shipping routes, agriculture, energy supplies — even drinking water.”

Moderna sues Pfizer-BioNTech, alleging coronavirus vaccine patent infringement

“Moderna sued Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech on Friday, alleging the rival firms improperly used its foundational technology in developing their coronavirus vaccine,” Christopher Rowland reports. “The suit sets up a legal battle between the most prominent companies that helped curb the coronavirus pandemic in the United States by developing highly effective shots in record time.”

Biden administration to declare toxic ‘forever chemicals’ as hazardous

The Biden administration has moved to add two of the most common polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances —  PFOA and PFOS —  to its official list of hazardous substances under the federal Superfund program, which cleans up toxic waste sites, Dino Grandoni reports.

Biden to create an Arctic ambassador

“President Biden plans to establish a new ambassador-at-large position focused on the Arctic region, an area of growing geostrategic concern to the United States — as well as Russia and China,” Politico’s Nahal Toosi reports.

Biden blasts GOP as turning toward ‘semi-fascism’

“Biden on Thursday night launched a push toward the midterm elections with a fiery speech in Rockville, Md., in which he cast the Republican Party as one that was dangerously consumed with anti-democratic forces that had turned toward ‘semi-fascism,’” Matt Viser reports. “It was some of the strongest language used by Biden, a politician long known — and at times criticized for — his willingness to work with members of the opposite party.”

“The MAGA Republicans don’t just threaten our personal rights and economic security,” Biden said, referencing former president Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan. “They’re a threat to our very democracy. They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace — embrace — political violence. They don’t believe in democracy.”

The resurgence of Russia’s Ruble, visualized

“While most economists agree that Russia is suffering real damage that will mount over time, the economy — at least on the surface — does not yet appear to be collapsing,” Jeanne Whalen, Robyn Dixon, Ellen Nakashima and Mary Ilyushina report. “The ruble’s initial nosedive in value quickly reversed after the state limited currency transactions and after Russia’s imports plummeted — an economic picture that can hardly be described as healthy, but one that calmed public fears about a currency crisis. Unemployment hasn’t noticeably surged, and Russia continues to earn the equivalent of billions of dollars every month from oil and gas exports.”

Judge rips fake electors’ claims they shouldn’t have to testify in Trump probe

In a three-page order, Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney “demolished the argument by 11 fake GOP electors who argued prosecutors should be disqualified from seeking criminal charges against them,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Patricia Murphy, Greg Bluestein and Tia Mitchell report. “Their case rested on McBurney’s earlier decision to exempt state Sen. Burt Jones, another fake elector who is now the GOP nominee for lieutenant governor, from District Attorney Fani Willis’ probe.”

“These alternate electors have provided no evidence that the District Attorney (or any member of her staff) has done anything that suggests a possible political motivation for investigating them – beyond the banal observation that they are Republicans and the District Attorney is not,” McBurney wrote.

Ted Cruz urges sanctions on Argentina’s Vice President Kirchner

“U.S. Senator Ted Cruz called on the State Department to impose sanctions against Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner for corruption allegations brought forward by a local prosecutor,” Bloomberg News’s Patrick Gillespie reports.

“The accusations against Kirchner, who was also Argentina’s president from 2007 to 2015, are ‘public, credible, and now backed by Argentina’s judicial system,’ the Texas Republican said in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday.”

“Kirchner is unlikely to face jail time in the near term. Beyond her legal immunity as vice president, a judge would have to rule on the case and a date hasn’t been set yet for such a hearing.” And “despite Cruz’s letter, it’s unlikely the State Department will take any immediate action against Kirchner.”

Biden will leave the White House at 1:55 p.m. for Beltsville, Md., after attending a morning meeting with elected officials about abortion access. 

He will leave Beltsville for New Castle, Del., at 4:05 p.m. and arrive at 4:40 p.m.

Thanks for reading. See you next week.